Emilio Arrieta

Born just to southern France in Puente la Reina, Navarre, on 21 October 1823, Pascual Juan Emilio Arrieta Corera is a comparatively obscure composer not unlike many Spanish composers. Not that music didn't thrive in Spain, but it was something peripheral to the grid of France, Germany and Italy. Though England was something of an oddball in the history of classical music, where before opera came along song had been considerably more popular than instrumental music as on the Continent, its proximity to France not far across the Channel kept it in the loop. Catholic Spain was long strongly allied with papal Italy, thus Venice as well, such that the Italian way of doing things was of strong influence in Spain ever since the Renaissance. Par for the course over the centuries, France proved itself contentious to Spain along with Italy. As for the Habsburgs, they may have finally put an end to the Muslim threat on the Iberian plain (as well as eastern Europe), but then came Napoleon to shake the boat. All history to Arrieta whose place in classical music was to promote a nationalistic form called the zarzuela [Wikipedia], challenging the Italian influence in opera up to that time in order to establish a strong Spanish identity in Spanish theatre. Just so, Arrieta was an important instructor and composer of zarzuelas, a dramatic form using both speech and song originating in Spain in the latter 17th century.

Arrieta studied at the Milan Conservatory from 1841 to 1845. His first opera, 'Ildegonda', was one of his requirements, winning first prize for composition when it there premiered on 28 February 1845 with a libretto by Temistocle Solera. Ildegonda is a noblewoman in love with a thirteenth-century Crusader named Rizzardo Mazzafiore. Upon returning to Milan he finds Ildegonda imprisoned for refusing a fixed marriage to one Ermenegildo Falsabiglia. She dies due to the poor conditions of her prison. Her father, Rolando, honors her last request to make peace with Rizzardo who had killed Ildegonda's brother, Rolando's son.

Preludio to 'Ildegonda'   1st opera by Emilio Arrieta

Premiere 28 Feb 1845 at the Milan Conservatory

Libretto: Temistocle Solera

C & O de Madrid / Jesús López Cobos